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I am going to argue that extraterrestrials lie behind global warming.

Yeah, Crichton, one extra-terrestrial in particular is responsible for global warming and cooling:

Like we need you to tell us that.

What sacred cow of your's did he threaten?

M-M-M-My Sharona!

Hahaha - that's what you get for looking up my member since date. Now you'll have that song stuck in your head for the next hour or two.

Never heard of the song! LOL!

Sooner or later, we must form an independent research institute in this country. It must be funded by industry, by government, and by private philanthropy, both individuals and trusts. The money must be pooled, so that investigators do not know who is paying them. The institute must fund more than one team to do research in a particular area, and the verification of results will be a foregone requirement: teams will know their results will be checked by other groups. In many cases, those who decide how to gather the data will not gather it, and those who gather the data will not analyze it. If we were to address the land temperature records with such rigor, we would be well on our way to an understanding of exactly how much faith we can place in global warming, and therefore what seriousness we must address this.

This has been tried. David Packard gave it a go at the Monterey Bay Marine Sanctuary. He admitted failure.

So Crichton advocates a top-down approach, as if researchers in a major institute spend enough time in the field getting their hands dirty and don't let their beliefs, friendships, and ambitions cross up the process? He thinks nobody else besides researchers are capable of generating honest information? The funniest part is that he advocates funding by "industry, by government, and by private philanthropy" as if those weren't the sources of funding for the existing mess he decries! He thinks some centralized institute wouldn't operate in its own interests rather than objective disinterest. Is that ever projected hubris.

Then there's a little matter of complexity. Does an institute of central environmental planning have a way to manage that much data? Can it chunk information in a dynamic and self-optimizing fashion such that competing risks are assessed objectively? Does it have a way to flush out the manipulator, the incompetent, or the merely venal? How does he propose to deal with offers of money under the table to skew the data in somebody's favor?

How about something completely different, Michael? How about repeated experiments with validated data conducted by someone who has something to lose if he is wrong? How about a market that organizes information by its capability to offset human impact, provide beauty, or manage competing species? Our real problem is one of motivation and accountability. Crighton doesn't get it.

When in doubt, read the article.